Washoe’s unemployment rate ticks down to 4.9% to start year

 

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While unemployment numbers have come down substantially across most of Nevada since the onset of the pandemic’s impact on businesses last March, Clark County remains the problem area in the state because of the Las Vegas area’s heavy reliance on leisure and hospitality jobs.

According to updated region-wide stats released March 17 for the month of January by the Nevada Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation, the jobless rate is below 5% in 11 of Nevada’s 17 counties.

But Clark County’s unemployment rate was 9.9% as of January’s end, according to DETR; the only other county above 6% is Lyon (6.6).

As a result, the statewide unemployment rate for January was a seasonally adjusted 8.5%, compared to 6.3% for the nation as a whole. That means 130,563 Nevadans were jobless in a labor force of 1.54 million.

As has been the case since unemployment rates began improving last spring when businesses slowly began to reopen, most Northern Nevada markets are faring much better, highlighted by the state’s second-most populous county, Washoe, where January’s jobless rate was 4.9% — that equates to 12,887 seeking a job in a pool of 265,191, according to DETR.

Of note, that's a tenth of a percentage point better than December, when Washoe finished the year with a 5% jobless rate, which is still up from the record-low 2.8% the greater Reno-Sparks area enjoyed in December 2019.

Carson City, meanwhile, was at 5.6% unemployment with 1,505 seeking work in a pool of 26,767 in January 2021. Carson added 1,976 to the workforce during January. Douglas was just a bit better at 5.5%, with 22,706 workers and 1,250 out of work.

The lowest January jobless rates were reported by Eureka County at 3.1% and White Pine at 3.2%. Churchill was at 3.7%, as were Humboldt, Elko and Pershing counties.

Go here for a detailed market-by-market overview from DETR.